Hungary
Hungary is a republic country in Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. The foundation of Hungary was laid in the late 9th Century by the Magyar chieftain Arpad, whose great-grandson Stephen was crowned in AD 1000. The Kingdom existed with interruptions for 946 years, and at various points was regarded as one of the cultural centers of the Western world. Part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire until the end of World War I, Hungary lost over two-thirds of its territory under the Treaty of Trianon, the terms of which have been considered humiliating by Hungarians. During World War II, anger over these concessions led Hungary to join the Axis, which ultimately led to its defeat in 1945. It fell under the influence of the Soviet Union from 1947–1989, during which Hungary gained widespread international attention regarding the Revolution of 1956 and the seminal move of opening its border with Austria in 1989, thus accelerating the collapse of the Eastern bloc. Since 1989, Hungary has been a parliamentary republic. Beginning in 2010, Prime Minister Viktor Orbán's government has grown increasingly more authoritarian. In December 2010, Hungary adopted a press and media law which threatens fines on media that engage in "unbalanced coverage" and in 2013 a new constitution that modified several aspects of the institutional and legal framework in Hungary; both aroused international criticism. Hungary in Agent of Byzantium The Magyars were a nomad people which for a time posed a serious threat to the Roman Empire. However, eventually the empire was able to block them and keep its Danube border inviolate. Afterwards, the Magyars were displaced by later arriving nomads and disappeared from history. Basil Argyros, who centuries later confronted the Jurchens - the latest in this series of nomad invaders - hoped that they would meet the same end as the Magyars. Hungary in "Batboy" After Missouri farm boy Rip joined up with the St. Louis Browns, he encountered a number of Hungarian immigrants - whom he called bohunks - and learned new respect for their cultural legends. Hungary in "Before the Beginning" An émigré from Hungary was among the French investigators to whom Jacob Dreyfus showed the time-viewer recording of God's voice. That the Hungarian heard the words in his own language, while the Frenchmen heard it in theirs, was crucial in convincing the audience of the validity of Dreyfus' claim. Hungary in The Hot War Under the rule of Matyas Rakosi, the Hungarian People's Republic followed the Soviet Union into World War III.Bombs Away, pg. 66, ebook. On 15 February 1951, two days prior to the outbreak of the ground war in Europe, the Hungarian city of Szekesfehervar was destroyed by an American atomic bomb.Ibid. pgs. 103-104. The Americans bombed Budapest with ordinary explosives on 24 February.Ibid. pgs. 121. The Hungarians remained crucial Soviet allies as they drove through West Germany. However, in mid-1951, rebellion broke out in all of the USSR's satellites, including Hungary.Fallout, loc. 4194-4232, ebook. The rebellion continued into the following year, draining precious Soviet resources.Armistice, pg. 68, ebook. Even Budapest fell to the rebels for a time.Ibid., pgs. 174-178.pgs. 232-237.Ibid., pgs. 272-276. The rebellion continued throughout 1952, even after the U.S. succeeded in killing Stalin in May, 1952 when it deployed the new hydrogen bomb against Omsk.Armistice, pgs. 77-80. Stalin's eventual successor, Vyacheslav Molotov, brokered a peace with the West in July, 1952. As part of this Treaty of Versailles, Molotov confirmed that so long as the U.S. stayed out of Soviet affairs, the Soviets would no longer fight the U.S. President Harry Truman in turn demanded that the Soviets not deploy atomic weapons against these satellites. Grudgingly, Molotov agreed.Ibid., pgs. 155-157. By the end of 1952, Hungary had been brought back into line.Ibid., pg. 428, ebook. Hungary in ''In the Presence of Mine Enemies'' Hungary was an independent ally of the [[Germany (In the Presence of Mine Enemies)|Greater German Reich]] in 2010. Hungary in ''Joe Steele'' Hungary aligned itself with Germany during World War II, even participating in the invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.''Joe Steele'', pg. 266.. Despite the invasion's initial success, the tide had definitely turned by 1944. With Leon Trotsky's Red Army barreling down from the east, Hungary's leader, Miklos Horthy attempted to make a peace with the Allies. Adolf Hitler had Horthy kidnapped and replaced with the Arrow Cross Party, a group of fascists horrible enough to satisfy even Hitler.Ibid., pg. 296. However, Hungary was soon defeated and occupied by the Soviets.Ibid., pg. 305. Charlie Sullivan's wife, Esther, had been born to a Jewish family in Hungary. Her family had moved to the United States just prior to the outbreak of World War I. After World War II, she and her parents tried to track down relatives who'd remained there, without any luck; the Hungarian government and the Red Army had little interest in helping an American search for her Jewish relatives.Ibid. pg. 305. Hungary in "The Phantom Tolbukhin" Hungary contributed troops to Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union in May, 1941. While the invasion went quite well, by 1947, the Germans were relying heavily on Hungarians, Romanians and Italians to maintain the continued occupation of the Ukraine. As political officer Nikita Khruschev pointed out with delight, the Romanians and the Hungarians could not even be stationed next to each other, or they would fight.See, e.g., Counting Up, Counting Down, pg. 106, TPB. Hungary in ''The Two Georges'' Hungary was a province of the Austrian Empire.Map ''The Two Georges'', frontispiece. Hungary in The War That Came Early Hungary's role in the early days of the Second World War was peculiar. In October 1938, under Admiral Miklos Horthy, Regent of the Kingdom, Hungary reclaimed territory from Czechoslovakia simultaneously with Germany's invasion. While Britain and France broke all diplomatic ties with Hungary, neither did they formally declare war on her. Hungary was not a formal ally of Germany until the "big switch" of 1940, when Germany was able to broker a peace with Britain and France. With this completed, Hungary joined Germany in the war against the Soviet Union.Coup d'Etat, pg. 15, HC. Hungary remained a German ally even after the British and the French left their alliance before the end of 1941. Throughout the remainder of the war, Hungarian troops fought exclusively in the Ukraine.Two Fronts, pg. 302-303. As a consequence of the historical animosity between Hungary and Germany's other staunch ally, Romania, the German military placed German units between the Hungarian and Romanian units on the lines.Last Orders, pg. 27-28. However, by 1943, Germany's situation was so dire that an unreliable ally was better than no ally. As 1943 ended, Germany and its allies were in constant retreat.Ibid., pg. 199. In April 1944, the Committee for the Salvation of the German Nation overthrew Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, bringing the war to a halt in Europe.Ibid., pgs. 300, 311, HC. Hungary kept the parts of Czechoslovakia it had taken early in the war, but otherwise derived no benefit from its alliance with Germany. Hungarian communists and left-wingers fought in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican side. Chaim Weinberg befriended one of them and learned from him pungent Hungarian expressions. These Hungarians were strongly opposed to Admiral Horthy's regime, and faced an open-ended exile, since returning to Hungary would mean imprisonment or execution. Hungary in Worldwar Dominated politically by Germany, Hungary was forced to join the Axis in 1941. Though small, Hungary was not conquered by the Race when the Conquest Fleet arrived on Earth in 1942. Although Hungary did not have diplomatic relations with the Race and had not been invited to attend the 1944 peace conference convened in Cairo by Fleetlord Atvar, Hungary's independence was ensured when Joachim von Ribbentrop asserted that Hungary was under German protection. Hungary contributed troops to the Polish Front of the Race-German War of 1965. Any thought it may have had the idea of making a separate peace with the Race ended abruptly when the Germans destroyed Bucharest to punish Romania for attempting to do the same. Hungary in "Zigeuner" In October 1944, Nazi Germany secured its continued alliance with Hungary by removing its leader, Miklos Horthy, before he could secure a peace with the Soviet Union. His German-appointed successor, Ferenc Szálasi, proved as determined to hunt down the ''Zigeuner'' as Adolf Hitler was.Asimov's Science Fiction, September/October, 2017, Vol. 41 Nos. 9 & 10, pg. 92. See also *Austria-Hungary for Hungary in Southern Victory and Crosstime Traffic. References }} Category:Countries in Europe Category:Agent of Byzantium Category:Austro-Hungarian Empire (Alternate Timeline) Hungary Category:Axis Members (Alternate Timeline) Category:Axis Members (OTL) Category:Batboy Category:Before the Beginning Category:The Hot War Hungary Category:Joe Steele Hungary Category:NATO Members Category:The Phantom Tolbukhin Category:The Two Georges Category:The War That Came Early Category:Warsaw Pact Category:Worldwar Category:Zigeuner